Wednesday, February 06, 2008

The Monster Bash

The non-Dion Oilers play the non-Crosby Hawks tonight. Best thing is, it's on TSN. That's like Christmas in February to me, except more monstrous, and with stronger, more muscular legs. The gritness is going to be off the charts. Plus, the Leafs lost 8-0 to Florida last night. Heads might actually blow up while we are watching. Sweet Davey Keon, this is a can't miss hockey broadcast.

Prediction: Let's make this a group effort. Who does Pierre McGuire fawn over tonight? Who's his daddy monster? The smart money is on Ethan Moreau, but I'm really, really hoping it's Zach Stortini. I want Huggy Bear to get some monster love. It will make my week.

Crosby. Sundin. Crosby.

***Update*** Also note that Team 1260 will be airing the teleconference with Daryl Katz, starting at 12 p.m. MST.

Consider yourself fortunate Toews is out of the lineup, otherwise we'd be hearing that Bryan Trottier comparison over and over and over again.....I like Toews as a player, but Maguire was comparing the kid to Trottier before he had even played an NHL game. Fuck.....let's be realistic here.

Gilbert Gilbert as the monster tonight with a goal and an assist in a 4-2 Oiler win.

My money is Maguire finding a way to fellate Crosby, Luongo, and Cliff Fletcher at least once each before the night is through. I'll also wager that the majority of the Intermission centres on Toronto, Ottawa, and Vancouver more than the two teams involved in the game they are broadcasting.

And I thought 5.4 million for a defenseman not capable of first-set minutes at even strength was an overpay.....6.5 million though? Wow. But in all seriousness.....

Steep for the Flames dollar-wise, but I can't exactly disagree with the long-term, big-money deals based on what a guy is going to do as he hits his peak (M.Richards, Hemsky, etc.), not based on what he has done as he moves into his mid-30's (Souray, Smyth). The risk here is turning into Tampa north (lots of money sunk into 4-5 guys, not enough cash left over to fill out the roster), but I think Tanguay getting moved and one of Huselius/Langkow walking away this July is pretty much unavoidable at this point.

Anyways, back to "Celine", least there's the realistic expectation that Phaneuf will evolve into that top pairing d-man, but for now, he's officially the most expensive second pairing guy in the league. And no, Flames fans, this is not intended as a cheapshot - he'll be the number 1 guy in Calgary when he starts playing Regehr's minutes in addition to racking up powerplay points.

Well, they've pretty much got the D corps covered for the next couple of years but I don't know where their offense is gonna come from come '09 and beyond. Every year we keep saying this is the best chance they'll have to win the Cup, but this has to be it, no?

Finally, I think it was a Sun piece where the guy said there's a rumour that one of the higher ranking MGMT types will be replaced once Katz takes over. I'm thinking that has to be Laforge.

Thanks, Rod. I downloaded it, and will listen to it when I get a moment. Staples mentioned something in his post about Katz reading blogs. Did anyone hear that? Was it blogs in general, the Oilogosphere, or just Staples' blog?

It was a reference to blogs in general. If I remember right, the question was whether Katz was aware of fan reaction during his ownership bid process. Katz responded that he did see things in the papers, on the web, and that he read some blogs too. I don't recall whether the question came from Staples (he had the first question, and one of two follow-ups at the end).

Not to rub salt into open wounds, but a friend of mine got a phone poll from a city - hired research firm. They were trying to get a read on how people feel about the arena and the possibility of public funding. I guess the questions were pretty loaded in favor of funding. Anybody here get this at home yet?

You should have called in AG. You could have asked what he thinks about Jones feeding on him for the past few months.

a friend of mine got a phone poll from a city - hired research firm. They were trying to get a read on how people feel about the arena and the possibility of public funding. I guess the questions were pretty loaded in favor of funding. Anybody here get this at home yet?

You should have called in AG. You could have asked what he thinks about Jones feeding on him for the past few months.

I was thinking you should have called, actually. Lawyered him up a bit. Asked about metrics. As for Jones, I giggled when I heard he had the second question. I was waiting for Katz to just cut him off, but he played nice.

Patrick Lalime is playing for the Hawks tonight? Man, talk about a slap to the face.

did anyone else notice that the broadcast last night was different. i don't know if it was just me but it seemed like tsn actually tried to broadcast a game to the fans of the oilers. they even talked about the oilers during the intermissions. it was creepy.

Heed: what I noticed, at least in-game, was Macguire trying to talk about anything non-Oilers; for instance, how many fucking more times do we have to hear about that fucking rink being named after fucking Martin Lapointe? On the other side, Miller was doing his usual thing where he pimps the Oil and talks old-timey Glory Days stories.

In perhaps a related note, why is it that TSN went nuts trying to draw one of the TO/Mtl games but thus far haven't landed a BOA match?

In other news, does anyone else want to stab themselves when Ron Maclean always adds "the forever rivals" when talking about those games?